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Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Why You Should Publish for Android and iOS

Yesterday
we spoke about how the Apple App Store had its best year yet in terms of apps
sold, with over $10 billion in sales for 2013 and a record $1 billion of those
sales taking place in December in the run up to the holiday season. Let’s not
beat around the bush here, apps are absolutely huge business.

In
May of the same year the App Store recorded their 50th billion download, those
figures are gargantuan, so vast that you have to take a moment to actually
digest the enormity of the zero’s involved! Apps are such big business because
smartphone usage has risen at such an exponential rate that it has become an
absolute necessity for businesses to have, and maintain, an online presence
through an app.

Research
carried out by Business Insider has shed light on some very interesting and
informative facts and figures which correlates with the ever expanding and
extremely lucrative app world. 6% of the world now own a tablet and over 22% of
the world’s population now own a smartphone, the research also points out that
it was mid 2012 that personal computers fell by the wayside to the new kids on
the block, the smartphone and the tablet. It was during this period that the
global per-capita rate of smartphones outperformed personal computers for the
first time. The same report highlights the following:

In
2009 global smartphone penetration was 5%; in 2014 it is around 22%, an
increase of nearly 1.3 billion smartphones in four years.

Tablets
are showing even quicker adoption rates than smartphones, whereas smartphones
took nearly four years to reach 6% penetration from when the devices first
started to register on a global scale, it took tablets just two years to
achieve the same results.

These
figures reinforce the undoubted fact that smartphones and tablet adoption has
been both widespread and expeditious, and this growth is not isolated to the
devices themselves. With such a dramatic and unheralded rise in usage of these
connected devices, apps for use in conjunction with them have risen in a similarly
impressive trajectory.

But why do I need an app?

In a
nutshell; convenience, convenience for the consumer. You are placing yourself
in the handbags and pockets of consumers worldwide through their smartphone
with your app. You only have to glance at some of the figures above to realize
the numbers this approach can entail. They will be able to access your
information and content where and when they want, mobile apps make your content
more accessible, engaging and crucially houses it all in one place rather than
expecting the consumer to surf all over the web locating it. Many apps include
the option for reading offline which is especially beneficial for magazines and
newspapers, apps really can reach that far.

Much
the same as having a website was once the essential part of your business plan,
the app has now risen to the fore, the world has gone mobile and for your
business grow and prosper with it, you need an app. Over 50% of your web
traffic is now mobile, can you afford to miss out on this volume of traffic?

Android or iOS?

It
is estimated that the Apple app store makes $5.1 million per day while the
Google play store is somewhat further down the revenue ladder at $1.1 million
per day and according to estimates by Citigroup analyst Mark May, Google Play
only, and I say ‘only’ with tongue firmly in cheek, garnered $1.3 billion in
the same period as the App Store registered $10 billion. Now, and this is where
it gets interesting, that figure is 13% of Apple apps store revenue yet android
accounts for 75% of all downloaded apps (Apple’s share was 18%).

You
would be forgiven for thinking, at first glance, that App Store was the only
option for your business if you were investigating the options for creating an
app for your company, not so. The Google play store, while dwarfed at the time
of writing by Apples behemoth, is actually growing at a quicker rate than the
App Store and when you take into account that Android has the lion’s share of
the marketplace with over 1.9 billion installed base devices compared to Apples
682 million devices then it is not insurmountable to assume that androids share
of the app marketplace is set to continue to flourish.

In
fact in a report by Citigroups Mark May, featured in Barrons, he highlights
that the “Google Play store that serves up applications and content to mobile
devices running its Android operating system could see 43% compounded annual
growth in revenue between now and 2017, growing from $1.3 billion to $5.2
billion.”

So
it’s clear that android has a bright future and one that shouldn’t be dismissed
lightly, while iOS has its obvious strengths it would be folly to rely on it
alone. It is impossible to separate one from the other, to gain maximum reach
you have to be available on all platforms, all devices, all operating systems,
the only way to do this, (and give your business the chance and exposure it
deserves), is to publish on both iOS and Android. But how do I do this you may
say?

Well
download the 3D Issue trial today and see what the branded app option can do
for you and ultimately your business. (By Charlie
Gallagher)